The outbreak of violence in the Israel-Hamas conflict is “a direct result” of the actions taken by the Biden administration since the inauguration, former Vice President Mike Pence says in a new column.
Hamas has fired more than 3,000 rockets into Israel since the conflict erupted May 10, and Israel has responded with daily airstrikes. About 90 percent of rockets headed toward population centers have been intercepted by Israel’s iron dome air defense system.
Pence, in a National Review column, says the violence is due to Biden reversing the policies of the Trump administration.
“President Biden has emboldened anti-Semitic terrorist groups such as Hamas by shunning Israeli leaders and restoring more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians that had been canceled by the Trump-Pence administration,” Pence wrote. “He unilaterally took the Iranian-backed Houthis off the list of designated terrorist organizations. And worst of all, he has announced his intention to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, destabilizing the entire region. When asked, Biden’s press secretary couldn’t even say whether Israel remains an ‘important ally’ of the United States.”
The United States must not remain neutral, Pence argued.
“Every tepid statement uttered by the Biden-Harris administration is built on a false equivalency between Israel and Hamas. One is a sovereign nation with a legitimate government, and a trusted ally,” he wrote. “The other is an internationally recognized terrorist organization that has fired more than 3,000 rockets at Jewish families and businesses in the past week.
“There is no moral equivalency between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas,” Pence added. “President Biden and every American leader should uphold Israel’s right to self-defense and condemn the terrorists of Hamas – as well as their supporters and apologists – in the strongest possible terms.”
Biden and congressional Democrats, Pence argued, “have abandoned unambiguous support for our ally Israel.”
“Under the Trump-Pence administration, we made it crystal clear to the world that America stands with Israel,” Pence wrote.
But now Israel is “enduring the worst outbreak of violence in at least seven years – a direct result of the weakness shown by the Biden administration from its first day in office,” Pence wrote.
“Americans,” he wrote, “should pray for the peace of Jerusalem and stand without apology for our most cherished ally, Israel, until the violence is quelled and Israel’s security is restored.”
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Mark Wilson/Staff
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
